Year One
Year One is first episode of TOME's second season and the eleventh episode overall. Summary From the TOME Website: A year has passed since the public release of the world’s most successful virtual reality game, TOME…and a certain group of brave players have been through an incredible experience during even just a portion of that time. To celebrate, the creators of TOME at Netking Software have chosen to throw a special anniversary event taking place in the ;Sanctuary region… …Players from all over the world gather together, hoping to win a contest with a spectacular opportunity as the prize! Little does the game’s populous know…that a dangerous threat is still looming on the horizon. Plot The episode begins with a new player, BaileySmith13, entering TOME for the first time, landing in ;Sanctuary. She quickly meets another player, named Justin, who is about to show her around when a Hacker by the name of Odboll appears and destroys both of their characters. He is about to go on a rampage when Flamegirl, Nylocke, Gamecrazed, and Alpha appear and attack him. Flamegirl asks him who he was hired by, but he refuses to tell. Three moderators then appear and ban Odboll. Their leader, ChaseAce, mentions that they have to clean everything before the one-year TOME anniversary event the following day. Flamegirl complains to him how the hacker attacks in ;Lavendera and ;Mechcity have gone unnoticed by the moderators, and ChaseAce tells her to take it up with the moderators of those regions, as he's just doing his job. The group then leaves to go about their business, but not before a familiar cat is seen watching them... The scene then jumps to the D-Buggers.org headquarters in the moon, where Kizuna is presumably trying to locate the Drain Edge, which still contains the Forbidden Power. Zetto then logs into the base and has a brief argument with Kizuna about the importance of finding it. Zetto tells Kizuna that he cares just as much about the game as protecting the people in it, and that he is much better prepared than before. He then leaves, leaving Kizuna to her business. The next day, Alpha is seen heading to ;Sanctuary and is briefly confronted by Kirbopher. They have a quick battle before Alpha invites Kirbopher to go to the anniversary event with the rest of the gang. Kirbopher meets up with Nylocke and Gamecrazed near the center of ;Sanctuary, where the Netking Statues are. Webmaster's assistant, Bishipp, appears on the platform and introduces Webmaster, who appears from the sky as usual. Webmaster thanks the players for joining the game and supporting Netking Software for a year, and mentions how proud he feels seeing all the unique characters around him. Bishipp then announces that the prize giveaways are about to start, and Webmaster asks her to start with a unique quest: a randomly selected player will be allowed to choose up to four other players and go on a quest in TOME's sun to defeat the five Netkings, including Webmaster. If they are victorious, they will be granted one wish within the Netkings' power. Bishipp activates the TOME bingo machine, which selects Gamecrazed, much to his surprise. As the event continues, the camera pans up to show the Drain Edge, still stuck at the top of Webmaster's statue, undisturbed from where it landed at the end of The Warring Demons. The scene cuts to Alpha and Flamegirl, who are away from the event, sitting on a bench in ;Sanctuary and discussing the fun they've had in TOME. Alpha brings up how Flamegirl once mentioned that it'd be cool if the gang met up in real life sometime, and says that since it's the one year anniversary, now would be a good time to start looking into it, and maybe at some point, Alpha could just visit Flamegirl. They are awkwardly interrupted by the rest of the gang, who apparently heard the last few moments of the conversation, and are told about Gamecrazed's prize. Alpha and Flamegirl agree to join the quest and decide to start the next day, as nothing else is really going on. Kirbopher nearly opts out, but Flamegirl convinces him to join. Meanwhile, Kizuna still cannot locate the Drain Edge, despite her best efforts. The next day, Gamecrazed's party meets with Bishipp at the Netking Statues to begin the quest. After some brief identification and banter, Bishipp sends the group to HOME (the Heavens Of Magical Expertise) via a beam of light similar to the ones players enter the game through. As a result, the energy from the beam dislodges the Drain Edge from its resting place, and it falls to the ground behind the Webmaster statue, unnoticed by the group and by Bishipp. The group ends up in a strange area within HOME. They stand on a floating metal platform and the background is filled with pipes and spinning gears. They are greeted by their first Netking foe: Execk , Netking number five. As each party member is only allowed to fight one Netking each, Alpha volunteers to fight Execk. After a brief but furious battle, Alpha emerges victorious. Execk reveals that he is the easiest of the administrators, so the group decides that Gamecrazed should fight the last one, as he is the most skilled out of all of them and he won the contest in the first place. The group then steps through a portal to their next opponent. The group appears in a landscape similar to ;Lavendera, only composed of crystals. Alpha states that something feels different about this area, but he can't figure out what. Kirbopher counters that the Netking is just putting on a show and that they'll probably appear in a moment with some sort of over-dramatic flair. As if on cue, a large pink crystal rises out of the ground and shatters to reveal the second Netking...Zetto?! Transcript Screenshots Trivia *Though unintentional, the characters BaileySmith13 and Justin's names are an accidental play on the famous "JUSTIN BAILEY" Metroid password. *The screen that Kizuna uses to search for the Forbidden Power has text on it that reads: **Virus Search - ;Sanctuary notes Leads -Rumors in sector G4 -Possible hacker activity in sector D1 -Former witnesses in sector V8 -Renegade hacker in sector R5 Locations covered -Sectors A1-A4 -Sectors C3-E3 -Sectors J7-M5 -Sectors O2-R9 -Sectors T1-X7 *According to the audio commentaries, in early stages of development, Episiode 11 was not part of TOME's story - Episode 10 was originally going to be the premiere of Season 2 and the Challenge of the Netkings was going to occur directly after the fight with Demon Zetto. However, when Episode 10 was changed to a season finale as opposed to a Season Premiere, Episode 11 was added to give the characters a new reason for taking the Challenge. Category:Episodes Category:Season 2